×

Vi använder kakor för att göra LingQ bättre. Genom att besöka sajten, godkänner du vår cookie policy.


image

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chapter 4 Part 3

Chapter 4 Part 3

By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a début after the armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Muhlbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

I was a bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress—and as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.

“ 'Gratulate me,” she muttered. “Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.”

“What's the matter, Daisy?”

I was scared, I can tell you; I'd never seen a girl like that before.

“Here, dearies.” She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. “Take 'em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Say: ‘Daisy's change' her mine!' ”

She began to cry—she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother's maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn't let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.

But she didn't say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five o'clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months' trip to the South Seas.

I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say: “Where's Tom gone?” and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel.

The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes, and later in Deauville, and then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all—and yet there's something in that voice of hers…

Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you—do you remember?—if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said: “What Gatsby?” and when I described him—I was half asleep—she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn't until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car.

When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of children, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:

> “I'm the Sheik of Araby.

> Your love belongs to me.

> At night when you're asleep

> Into your tent I'll creep—”

“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.

“But it wasn't a coincidence at all.”

“Why not?”

“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendour.

“He wants to know,” continued Jordan, “if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.”

The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths—so that he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger's garden.

“Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?”

“He's afraid, he's waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see, he's regular tough underneath it all.”

Something worried me.

“Why didn't he ask you to arrange a meeting?”

“He wants her to see his house,” she explained. “And your house is right next door.”

“Oh!”

“I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in New York—and I thought he'd go mad:

“ ‘I don't want to do anything out of the way!' he kept saying. ‘I want to see her right next door.'

“When I said you were a particular friend of Tom's, he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesn't know very much about Tom, though he says he's read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name.”

It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”

“And Daisy ought to have something in her life,” murmured Jordan to me.

“Does she want to see Gatsby?”

“She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her to know. You're just supposed to invite her to tea.”

We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the façade of Fifty-Ninth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.

Chapter 4 Part 3 Kapitel 4 Teil 3 Capítulo 4 Parte 3 第4章 その3 Rozdział 4 Część 3 Capítulo 4 Parte 3 Bölüm 4 Kısım 3 Розділ 4, частина 3 第 4 章第 3 部分

By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. No outono seguinte, voltou a ser gay, mais gay do que nunca. She had a début after the armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. Ha debuttato dopo l'armistizio e a febbraio si è presumibilmente fidanzata con un uomo di New Orleans. Teve uma estreia após o armistício e, em fevereiro, estava presumivelmente noiva de um homem de Nova Orleães. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. In giugno sposò Tom Buchanan di Chicago, con più sfarzo di quanto Louisville avesse mai conosciuto prima. Em junho, casou com Tom Buchanan, de Chicago, com mais pompa e circunstância do que Louisville alguma vez conheceu. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Muhlbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Arrivò con un centinaio di persone in quattro auto private, affittò un intero piano dell'Hotel Muhlbach e il giorno prima del matrimonio le regalò un filo di perle del valore di trecentocinquantamila dollari. Veio com uma centena de pessoas em quatro carros particulares, alugou um andar inteiro do Hotel Muhlbach e, na véspera do casamento, ofereceu-lhe um colar de pérolas avaliado em trezentos e cinquenta mil dólares.

I was a bridesmaid. Ero una damigella d'onore. Eu era uma dama de honor. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress—and as drunk as a monkey. Entrai nella sua stanza mezz'ora prima della cena nuziale e la trovai distesa sul letto, bella come la notte di giugno nel suo vestito a fiori, e ubriaca come una scimmia. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other. Aveva una bottiglia di Sauterne in una mano e una lettera nell'altra.

“ 'Gratulate me,” she muttered. "Gratulieren Sie mir", murmelte sie. "Ringraziatemi", mormorò. "Agradece-me", murmurou ela. “Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.” "Non ho mai bevuto prima, ma quanto mi piace".

“What's the matter, Daisy?”

I was scared, I can tell you; I'd never seen a girl like that before. Ero spaventato, posso dire che non avevo mai visto una ragazza così.

“Here, dearies.” She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. "Ecco, cari". Cercò in un cestino che aveva con sé sul letto e tirò fuori il filo di perle. “Take 'em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. "Bringt sie nach unten und gebt sie demjenigen zurück, dem sie gehören. "Portateli di sotto e restituiteli a chi di dovere. "Levem-nos lá para baixo e devolvam-nos a quem quer que pertençam. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Dite a tutti che Daisy sta cambiando la sua miniera. Dizer-lhes que a Daisy está a trocar a minha. Say: ‘Daisy's change' her mine!' ” Dite: "Daisy ha cambiato la sua miniera!". "

She began to cry—she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother's maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. Mi precipitai fuori e trovai la cameriera di sua madre, chiudemmo la porta e le facemmo fare un bagno freddo. Saí a correr e encontrei a empregada da mãe dela, trancámos a porta e metemo-la num banho frio. She wouldn't let go of the letter. Non voleva lasciare la lettera. Ela não largava a carta. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow. Lo portò con sé nella vasca e lo strinse in una palla bagnata, e me lo lasciò nel portasapone solo quando vide che si stava sfaldando come neve. Levou-o para a banheira e espremeu-o numa bola molhada, e só me deixou deixá-lo na saboneteira quando viu que se estava a desfazer como neve.

But she didn't say another word. Aber sie sagte kein weiteres Wort. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Wir gaben ihr Salmiakgeist, legten ihr Eis auf die Stirn und hängten sie wieder in ihr Kleid, und als wir eine halbe Stunde später den Raum verließen, lagen die Perlen um ihren Hals und der Vorfall war vorbei. Le demmo dell'ammoniaca, le mettemmo del ghiaccio sulla fronte e le riattaccammo il vestito; mezz'ora dopo, quando uscimmo dalla stanza, le perle erano al collo e l'incidente era finito. Demos-lhe álcool com amoníaco, pusemos-lhe gelo na testa e voltámos a prendê-la ao vestido e, meia hora depois, quando saímos do quarto, as pérolas estavam à volta do pescoço e o incidente tinha terminado. Next day at five o'clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months' trip to the South Seas. Il giorno dopo, alle cinque, sposò Tom Buchanan senza nemmeno un brivido e partì per un viaggio di tre mesi nei mari del sud. No dia seguinte, às cinco horas da tarde, casou com Tom Buchanan sem qualquer arrepio e partiu numa viagem de três meses para os mares do sul.

I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say: “Where's Tom gone?” and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. Se lui usciva dalla stanza per un minuto, lei si guardava intorno inquieta e diceva: "Dov'è andato Tom?" e assumeva l'espressione più astratta finché non lo vedeva rientrare dalla porta. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. Stündlich saß sie mit seinem Kopf in ihrem Schoß im Sand, strich ihm mit den Fingern über die Augen und schaute ihn mit unergründlicher Freude an. Si sedeva sulla sabbia con la testa di lui in grembo a ore, passandogli le dita sugli occhi e guardandolo con insondabile piacere. It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. È stato commovente vederli insieme: ti faceva ridere in modo sommesso e affascinato. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car. Una settimana dopo la mia partenza da Santa Barbara, Tom si imbatté in un carro sulla strada di Ventura una notte, e strappò una ruota anteriore alla sua auto. The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel. Anche la ragazza che era con lui finì sui giornali, perché si era rotta un braccio: era una delle cameriere dell'Hotel Santa Barbara.

The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes, and later in Deauville, and then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Ich sah sie in einem Frühjahr in Cannes und später in Deauville, und dann kamen sie zurück nach Chicago, um sich niederzulassen. Li ho visti una primavera a Cannes e poi a Deauville, poi sono tornati a Chicago per stabilirsi. Vi-os numa primavera em Cannes, e mais tarde em Deauville, e depois voltaram para Chicago para assentar. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Sie bewegten sich mit einer schnellen Menge, die alle jung und reich und wild waren, aber sie kam mit einem absolut perfekten Ruf heraus. Si muovevano con una folla veloce, tutti giovani e ricchi e selvaggi, ma lei ne uscì con una reputazione assolutamente perfetta. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Sie können Ihren Mund halten und außerdem jede kleine Unregelmäßigkeit so timen, dass alle anderen so blind sind, dass sie es nicht sehen oder sich nicht darum kümmern. Si può tenere a freno la lingua e, inoltre, si può cronometrare qualsiasi piccola irregolarità propria in modo che tutti gli altri siano così ciechi da non vederla e da non preoccuparsene. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all—and yet there's something in that voice of hers… Forse Daisy non ha mai amato l'amore, eppure c'è qualcosa in quella sua voce...

Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you—do you remember?—if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said: “What Gatsby?” and when I described him—I was half asleep—she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. Nachdem Sie nach Hause gegangen waren, kam sie in mein Zimmer, weckte mich und sagte: "Welcher Gatsby?", und als ich ihn beschrieb - ich war noch im Halbschlaf -, sagte sie mit der seltsamsten Stimme, dass es der Mann sein müsse, den sie früher gekannt habe. Dopo che siete andati a casa, è entrata nella mia stanza e mi ha svegliato, e ha detto: "Quale Gatsby?" e quando gliel'ho descritto - ero mezzo addormentato - ha detto con una voce stranissima che doveva essere l'uomo che conosceva. It wasn't until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car. Solo allora ho collegato questo Gatsby con l'agente nella sua auto bianca.

When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park. Quando Jordan Baker ebbe finito di raccontare tutto questo, avevamo lasciato il Plaza da mezz'ora e stavamo guidando in una Victoria attraverso Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of children, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight: Il sole era tramontato dietro gli alti appartamenti delle star del cinema degli anni Cinquanta, e le voci chiare dei bambini, già radunati come grilli sull'erba, si levavano nel caldo crepuscolo:

> “I'm the Sheik of Araby. > "Sono lo sceicco di Araby.

> Your love belongs to me. > Deine Liebe gehört mir. > Il tuo amore mi appartiene.

> At night when you're asleep > Nachts, wenn du schläfst

> Into your tent I'll creep—” > Nella tua tenda mi insinuerò...".

“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.

“But it wasn't a coincidence at all.”

“Why not?” "Warum nicht?"

“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”

Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. Allora non erano state solo le stelle a cui aveva aspirato in quella notte di giugno. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendour. Mi è apparso vivo, liberato all'improvviso dal grembo del suo splendore senza scopo.

“He wants to know,” continued Jordan, “if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.” "Er möchte wissen", fuhr Jordan fort, "ob du Daisy am Nachmittag zu dir nach Hause einlädst und ihn dann zu dir kommen lässt." "Vuole sapere", continuò Jordan, "se inviterai Daisy a casa tua un pomeriggio e poi lo farai venire da noi".

The modesty of the demand shook me. La modestia della richiesta mi ha scosso. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths—so that he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger's garden. Aveva aspettato cinque anni e aveva comprato una villa dove dispensava la luce delle stelle a falene occasionali, in modo da poter "venire" un pomeriggio nel giardino di un estraneo.

“Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?” "Musste ich das alles wissen, bevor er so eine Kleinigkeit fragen konnte?"

“He's afraid, he's waited so long. "Ha paura, ha aspettato così a lungo. He thought you might be offended. Pensava che vi sareste sentiti offesi. You see, he's regular tough underneath it all.” Siehst du, darunter ist er richtig hart." Vedete, sotto sotto è un vero duro".

Something worried me.

“Why didn't he ask you to arrange a meeting?” "Warum hat er Sie nicht gebeten, ein Treffen zu arrangieren?" "Perché non ti ha chiesto di organizzare un incontro?".

“He wants her to see his house,” she explained. "Vuole che veda la sua casa", ha spiegato. “And your house is right next door.”

“Oh!”

“I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did. "Ich glaube, er erwartete fast, dass sie eines Abends zu einer seiner Partys kommen würde", fuhr Jordan fort, "aber das tat sie nicht. "Credo che lui si aspettasse che una sera si imbattesse in una delle sue feste", ha proseguito Jordan, "ma non l'ha mai fatto. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it. Fu quella sera che mi mandò a chiamare al suo ballo, e avreste dovuto sentire il modo elaborato in cui si era preparato per farlo. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in New York—and I thought he'd go mad: Natürlich schlug ich sofort ein Mittagessen in New York vor - und ich dachte, er würde verrückt werden: Naturalmente, ho subito proposto un pranzo a New York e ho pensato che sarebbe impazzito:

“ ‘I don't want to do anything out of the way!' he kept saying. "Non voglio fare niente di strano!", continuava a ripetere. ‘I want to see her right next door.'

“When I said you were a particular friend of Tom's, he started to abandon the whole idea. "Quando ho detto che lei era un amico particolare di Tom, ha iniziato ad abbandonare l'idea. He doesn't know very much about Tom, though he says he's read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name.” Er weiß nicht viel über Tom, obwohl er sagt, dass er seit Jahren eine Zeitung aus Chicago liest, nur um einen Blick auf Daisys Namen zu erhaschen." Non sa molto di Tom, anche se dice di aver letto per anni un giornale di Chicago solo per la possibilità di scorgere il nome di Daisy".

It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Era ormai buio e, mentre ci immergevamo sotto un ponticello, misi un braccio intorno alla spalla dorata di Jordan, la attirai verso di me e le chiesi di cenare. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. Improvvisamente non pensavo più a Daisy e a Gatsby, ma a questa persona pulita, dura, limitata, che si occupava di scetticismo universale e che si appoggiava in modo sbarazzino proprio nel cerchio del mio braccio. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.” Una frase cominciò a battere nelle mie orecchie con una sorta di eccitazione inebriante: "Ci sono solo gli inseguiti, gli inseguitori, gli occupati e gli stanchi".

“And Daisy ought to have something in her life,” murmured Jordan to me. "Und Daisy sollte etwas in ihrem Leben haben", murmelte Jordan zu mir. "E Daisy dovrebbe avere qualcosa nella sua vita", mi mormorò Jordan.

“Does she want to see Gatsby?”

“She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her to know. Gatsby will nicht, dass sie es erfährt. You're just supposed to invite her to tea.” Dovresti solo invitarla a prendere il tè".

We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the façade of Fifty-Ninth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park. Superammo una barriera di alberi scuri e poi la facciata della Cinquantanovesima Strada, un blocco di delicata luce pallida, si proiettò nel parco. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Im Gegensatz zu Gatsby und Tom Buchanan hatte ich kein Mädchen, dessen körperloses Gesicht an den dunklen Gesimsen und blendenden Schildern entlangschwebte, und so zog ich das Mädchen neben mir her und schlang meine Arme um sie. A differenza di Gatsby e Tom Buchanan, non avevo una ragazza il cui volto incorporeo fluttuava lungo i cornicioni scuri e le insegne accecanti, e così mi sono tirato su la ragazza accanto a me, stringendo le braccia. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face. La sua bocca magra e sprezzante sorrise, e allora la avvicinai di nuovo, questa volta al mio viso.